This question was posed in Bill Simmons' mailbag on ESPN.com. This has to go in some file as all-time funniest mailbag emails from readers, and the best part is, this comes from Seattle, Wash.

Q: My freshman year of college, my roomate had this old girlfriend coming to see him. He went on and on for weeks about how hot she was and all the great sex they were gonna have. Then she showed up, had just gotten out of a back brace due to a car accident and had gained an honest no BS 50lbs. Having no real out, he got drunk and slept with her anyway and then spent the rest of the year defending it. The point is, I had forgotten all about this years ago and then suddenly Dumars resigned Ben Wallace, and it all came flooding back. -- Mark, Seattle, Wash.

This does bring up some interesting questions about human nature. I mean guys will sleep with just about anybody, regardless of the ramifications and medical "issues." But I'm not going to be one to judge, I do have a question for all guys out there though...

If the girl was at one time hot, but is no longer hot when you sleep with her, have you slept with somebody that was hot?

(And for you out there that think this question is a little too adult, mainly my parents and relatives, keep in mind that this is just in good fun, I'm not actually advocating random hookups. It's JustSON! Where we talking about Casey's fiancee farting and random hookups with ugly girls. Enjoy!)

When my friend Dylan and I went to a Spokane Indians game on Tuesday, the Indians' starting pitcher was getting shelled the first two innings - giving up three runs and a bushel of hits - causing me to make this statement.

"I didn't know Brad Penny was pitching for Spokane this year."

To which Dylan replied...

"Hey come on, give this guy a chance, he's only given up three in two innings."

Ladies and gentlemen Brad Penny! He was just recently released by the Red Sox after being asked to be let out of his contract. Something tells me that he just wasn't thrilled being called a f****** p**** by fans after yet another five-inning, five run performance on the mound.

Even with his recent struggles, he’s running a 4.48 FIP on the season, thanks to recording twice as many strikeouts as walks and maintaining a neutral home run rate. That makes him around a league average starting pitcher for the season. Yes, he throws his fastball too much, but that’s always been true – he’s averaged 70% or more fastballs every year since 2004, and he’s proven he can be at least moderately successful pounding the zone with heaters.

The chink in his results – a .336 batting average on balls in play, which isn’t particularly predictive of anything. ZIPS projects a 4.44 FIP from Penny going forward, and that’s assuming he stays in the American League. Someone’s going to get a quality pitcher for nothing – who are the contenders for his services?

Make that two Boston Red Sox starting pitchers that have been run out of town. What a wonderful season.

My baseball fandom has reached a new level of geekiness thanks to a tip from a coworker. If you have no social life, please go to fangraphs.com which will completely change the way you look at the game of baseball.

After taking a quick look at the Boston Red Sox roster on fangraphs and loading up the Value Page, I've discovered that Kevin Youkilis is the most valuable player on the team (at least offensively). The Value formula on this site basically determines how much more value a player holds compared to a AAA replacement.

Here's Kevin Youkilis' numbers in a dumbed down version of the value page.

Youkilis is worth 4.6 more wins a season. (Assuming that a team of AAA replacements would win 50 games in a season)

He also will score 33.1 runs more than your regular AAA replacement during a season.

Okay maybe it's just me, but I find this absolutely facinating. Another thing you'll notice when you look at this value page is the fact that for the most part, the Boston Red Sox defensive value is terrible. That's what you get when you have Nick Green at shortstop and Mike Lowell's miracle hip at third base.

There's several things that are pretty embarrassing to be buying at the store, but for the most part you can just shove it in your cart and go through the self-checkout stands (which are quite possibly the greatest catalyst to the sudden increase in condom and ex-lax sales in America). One purchase that you can't get away with is the toilet paper packs.

I understand that people go through a lot of it, but is it really necessary to make me buy that 48 back that's roughly the size of a Volkswagen. Not only does that limit the amount of other stuff I can shove into my cart to a bag of Skittles but it also broadcasts to the rest of the store that I've been using Kleenexes to wipe my butt for the past two days and am in need of some serious toilet paper.

Sure everyone poops, but what do you think when you see someone lugging around a pack of toilet paper that looks like it could have supplied the entire Allied Army during D-Day? Yeah, we judge.

Is there a way I could go through the drive-thru to get toilet paper? I mean if it's McDonald's I'm going to be using the restroom in 20 minutes anyways.

Apparently I have no soul and am un-American because I do not like the Little League World Series. Is there another athletic event that is so completely overrated, over-hyped, boring to watch on television and of absolute no real athletic value?

... other than the Olympics?

But really, while it's kind of cool that teams come from Mercer Island, WA, the LLWS is just another example of how youth sports has become incredibly bloated and ridiculous. Have you heard or seen some of these parents and coaches at this event? Living vicariously through their children is an understatement... having no life and being a sad pathetic has-been that will burn their kids out on sports before the age of 13 is more like it.

Maybe I'm the only person that thinks this way (judging from the feel-good promos by ESPN, I probably am) but I'd much rather watch SportsCenter than a 12-year old throw a 60 MPH fastball (which is 20 more MPH than my fastest pitch).

So apparently Michael Vick was spotted at an airport bar sipping on some Grey Goose.

STOP THE PRESSES! MICHAEL VICK HAS BEEN SPOTTED LEGALLY DRINKING!!!!

For the past 48 hours I've hear every angle about how that was a bad public move and how this shows that Michael Vick hasn't learned anything... all for sitting down and having a drink with friends.

Listen, Vick is a crazy mofo. That's been established. He's got some serious issues. However none of those issues have anything to do with alcohol. I understand that he's put himself in a position of criticism (that tends to happen when you run a dog-fighting ring on the side of being one of the most popular quarterbacks in the NFL) - but could our media please try to come up with something more compelling than his apparent good taste in booze?

I mean, it would be nice to see him building churches for people and healing the sick with the touch of his hand, but him enjoying an alcoholic drink should have no affect on his already destroyed public image. He brought it upon himself, but for my own sports fandom, it kind of sucks that there will be a camera and reporter around every corner to tell me when Michael Vick doesn't kiss a baby.

Every year when the sports news gets a little thin, ESPN jumps on the "Is Pete Rose going to be re-instated?" which has all the punch of a cow taking a dump.

Really? We're still talking about Pete Rose? The man committed the mortal sin of betting on a sport he was still part of, completely undermining the credibility of it and bringing into question the validity of the results as a whole.

Basically if your sport doesn't have those two things, you don't have a sport, you have the WWE.

Rose is a douche in the biggest way. He's financially benefited from his judgment error by finally admitting to betting on baseball (after years of denial) by publishing a book!

No press conference. No admitting to the media. Pete Rose used a money-making book tour. Why would anyone have any sympathy towards this guy?

Really, if he finally gets into the museum of baseball, he's going to have quite a few tarnishes on that bronze statue of his.

August 24, 2009

I just realized that in less than two weeks, the Eastern Washington Eagles will be kicking off another season of college football. You have no idea how happy this makes me, NCAA sanctions or not.

Their first opponent? Div. II Western Oregon.

Something tells me I should hold my tongue after the Eags got upset by Div. II Central Washington a few years back but something tells me that EWU will do just fine against the mighty WOU. How exactly does that roll off the tongue? Sounds like I'm making a cat call or something.

Now granted most colleges play down for their first game to get a little bit of work in before playing more important games, but it makes me wonder - who does Western Oregon play to warm up for the season?

1. Hanford High School2. College for people who think football is actually soccer3. The Over-60 Team Canada Football team4. The Spokane Shock Dance Team

I love college football. Can't wait! Season Opener in Cheney, Wash. on Sept. 5!

Some people are up in arms about Boise State's new policy of no-smoking on campus, that also includes student's own cars that are on campus parking lots.

With much fanfare, Boise State University last week implemented a campus-wide no-smoking policy. I’m not going to deny the ability of the government to regulate or even ban smoking on campus. The trouble is the policy extends beyond the campus and its buildings and straight into privately-owned automobiles. “Smoking on all Boise State property, including in cars parked on the property, is prohibited,” school officials explain in a frequently-asked-questions paper attached to the policy.

And violators? “Boise State University reserves the right to initiate disciplinary procedures against any individual found to be in continuous violation of this policy,” students are warned. I’m not sure what that means, but it sounds like something you wouldn’t want your parents to know about. Boise State takes a huge leap, putting the government in control of the interior of private vehicles, all in the interest of promoting student health and academic performance.

I personally have no problem with the smoking ban since I've literally been sickened walking to class before while going by a pack of lung-killers. However extending their jurisdiction to somebody's car is going to piss off some freedom lovers here in Amuri-ka.

Problem is, cigarettes and smoking are both a substance and a purposeful act. If the university has deemed that unhealthy for the public and it's students, they have every right as an institution to do so. It's not like you can have sex in your car while parked in a university lot and not get in trouble for it. Chances are you'll probably be ticketed for lewd acts in public or at least asked to leave. Like cigarettes, sex is not illegal however, institutions find that people doing it in the front seat for the world to see would be less than right for our society.

Now Boise State has come across with the ruling that they don't think students sitting on their college campus smoking is a good thing for society and for student health in general. Good for them, I support it. It's pretty cut and dry to me. If you want to continue to do this, go home and smoke.

I hear smokers complain all the time about their rights being violated and how it's harder to smoke in public areas. Duh. Not only is second-hand smoke dangerous (so I wouldn't want to walk through a parking lot and get assaulted by smoke - trust me, not too many people would smoke with the windows rolled up), but down the line these smokes drive up costs in our health care system when their body starts to break down. So please, make smoking a felony for all I care - it's damaging to society and it's affecting me even if I don't light up.

Here's Adrian Peterson, the fantasy demi-god of NFL running backs, going for the first down with some ducks. Being something of a country bumpkin myself, I always get a weird sense of amusement when I see hunting photos of famous athletes.

All that is missing now is that cliched photo of Peterson holding the head of a shot deer with antlers. If only everyone could see the Facebook photos uploaded by people from Chewelah...

After purchasing the Wii version of Madden 10, you almost throw the thing away in a fit of tears after your inability to find the "Franchise Mode" on the game. However after a quick search on Google, you discover that it needs to be unlocked (super lame) by playing the game.

And in true douche form, instead of taking the challenge and trying to unlock Franchise Mode, you just take the cheat codes off the Internet and have now started a franchise with the Tennessee Titans. Anyone want Vince Young?

Due to a family tragedy, I've been unable to update here on Just South of North for a while. I don't really want to elaborate on what happened because all of my close friends are aware of the situation already, and it's not something I'd like to broadcast to everyone.

However, I will say that it's been an extremely tough week and I'm finding that the best way to approach this is to keep chugging along. Because of that, it's probably best that I keep working on the blog and making you people out there laugh/get mad at me.

One thing that we love around here at JustSON is sports. Another, is Twinkies!

I came across this article today about the Twinkie King. It ran in the Seattle Times by Nicole Brodeur. It was a great article.

When it comes to Twinkies, it's just cruel to keep count.

The calories per cake, the ingredients keeping those spongy bars of gold so ... spongy. The number we eat in a lifetime. Counting is a buzz kill.

Joe Traxler, on the other hand, is all about the numbers.

The bags of flour and sugar used to make Twinkies? Fifty pounds each. The pans they bake in? Each holds 36 cakes. The number of pans Traxler fills a day? Four thousand or more.

The years he has been baking them? Fifty as of Thursday, his last day on the job.

Call Traxler, 68, "The Twinkie King," responsible for helping make a billion or more of the things and sending them into the world.

"Anyplace I go, a ballgame or a park, any place where people are enjoying themselves, the Twinkie will always be around," he said the other day over coffee and (!) banana bread at his home in Mountlake Terrace.

"They taste good," he said. "If I have a Twinkie and eat it, I thoroughly enjoy it. Simple as that."

What's hard to wrap your mind around is the years Traxler has spent behind the mixer, in a building that has sent sweet smells over Aurora Avenue near Seattle Center for generations.

Every year about this time I have to listen to somebody babble about the Hawks preseason games and how awesome their seventh string tight-end from Western Eastern Washington State Community College did against the fourth-string defense of the San Diego chargers. Whoop-dee doo.

It's fun to watch football, but not meaningless football. If there's one thing the college ranks do right, it's the lack of a meaningless game in their season. The NFL however, is content with charging full price for fans to see players that will be bagging groceries in four weeks. Can you imagine people getting this excited for baseball when the Boston Red Sox are playing Boston College?

"Man you should have seen Brad Penny last night, he was on his game against those college kids."

Seriously, that's just the same as these people that quack about preseason football.

While everyone gets all excited about football, I think I'll stick to baseball and pray that the Red Sox don't fade down the stretch. Those games matter. The four preseason games in football don't.

(In fact they mean so little they took the preseason games out of the Wii version on Madden 10, a feature that I really enjoy because I felt guilty skipping the preseason games but hated playing them)

August 17, 2009

It's finally that time. Time for new episodes of Man vs. Wild. You know the show, where Bear Grylls runs around in the wild and shows the viewers how to survive in areas that they will probably never visit.

But if the they did visit there, they would know how to survive.

Bear is amazing. Period.

Catch the new episodes starting tomorrow, August 19, at 9:00 PM on the Discovery Channel. Bear will be taking on the Alabama wild.

The Discovery Channel currently has a posting for Bear's Top 10 memories from the Alabama episode.

Here's that list:

10. The view across the Carpathians from the top of the grove (whilst hanging from the heli skids)

9. Finding that tree down the cliff face.

8. Grabbing the tree trunk while my raft went over the waterfall.

7. Getting wedged down that cave shaft (not!).

6. Not getting bitten by that wild pig!

5. Eating flamed pork by firelight in my camp.

4. Surviving the flames of the forest fire.

3. Grabbing the back of a logging truck at high speed (just!).

2. Getting pulled over by the state troopers looking like Swamp Man.

1. Finishing with my shoulder intact only three months after breaking it. I was very nervous on this one, but all came out well. Thank the Lord.

That is quite a list. And it sounds like an amazing episode! I can't wait.

This episode will be followed by another one at 10:00 PM in which Bear heads to Belize.

Nicholls State University wanted a meaner, more edgier logo and what they come up with was either designed by the Third Reich or Stalin. Take a gander above at the wonderful Major Bison mascot they came up with.

Even though NSU said they used focus groups before releasing the logo, I can only imagine they probably held those groups somewhere in Siberia.

August 16, 2009

Last week my dad and my fiance went hiking around Sunrise as the Northern Rangers we to meet up with them and pick up more food for our backpacking trip. On their hike, my dad and fiance found a new fuzzy friend along the trail. (Photo by Al Knopik/ Buckley, WA)

Click on the photo to make it larger.

Think you've got a great outdoor photo? Want to see it hosted on Just South of North? Send your submissions to justsouthofnorth@gmail.com.

Please include your name, a short caption about the photo (date, location, and what makes it special) and your location.

Bike MS is the premier cycling series in the nation. The series features over 100 different rides with the profits raised through donations by the participants going toward researching MS.

My dad will be participating in the Bike MS Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes on September 12-13. The ride will be 150 miles down the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes in Idaho.

You can view his personal page and make a donation if you'd like to support the cure for MS by visiting his site here and clicking the "donate to Al" button.

Here's a sample from the page:Why I Ride

I've registered for the MS Bike Tour because I want to do something for the people who have been diagnosed - and because I want to do everything to prevent more people from learning what it means to live with this disease. Today, there is no cure for multiple sclerosis, and with diagnosis occurring most frequently between the ages of 20 and 50, many individuals face a lifetime filled with unpredictability.

Why You Should Sponsor Me

The National Multiple Sclerosis Society will use funds collected from the MS Bike Tour to not only support research for a cure tomorrow, but also to provide programs which address the needs of people living with MS today. Because we can fight this disease by simply riding a bike, because we have chosen to help thousands of people through a contribution to the MS Bike Tour, we are now getting closer to the hour when no one will have to hear the words, "You have MS."

Please feel free to make a donation if you'd like, but please do not feel like you have too. Even just a simple note wishing him well would be great. He doesn't know I'm posting this, I'm just very proud of him and what he does.